The division has around 350 salespeople that deal financial
products to clients looking to hedge their bets around the world.

And it's now two years into a programme to improve staff
"emotional intelligence," and start ridding fear and
self-interest from the institutional mindset.

The plan cuts right across the group, from the top managers to
the quantitative risk modellers to the sales people.

There's a good reason – the bank has to differentiate itself from
the bigger players, both to clients and to employees, in order to
stand any chance of competing.

ING, which bought Barings for £1 after
rogue trader Nick Leeson blew it apart with more than £800
million in losses in 1995, isn't big enough to compete on price
or resources for new business with the bulge-bracket banks such
as JP Morgan or Credit Suisse.

So they're trying to compete on trust — And it's
working.

"This year, for financial markets, we'll be starting with
providing full transparency to clients on our margins, per
product," Mark Pieter de Boer, global head of financial markets
sales, said in an interview in London.

"We want to alleviate the fear that if we start sharing this with
the clients, they'll say the margins are too high or too low,
because we want to earn their trust. To overcome that fear is
really an achievement, de Boer said."

It all begins with training for staff to recognise their own
beliefs behavioural patterns and how the combination of the
two motivate what they do at work.

Here's the graphic the bank uses to identify that:

ING

Too much focus on individual results or personal bonuses leads to
fear, and the idea that any slip up could cost you in terms of
money and reputation. This leads in turn to a lack of connection
with peers and clients, and, ultimately, a whole load of stress.

The no-fear approach has filtered into the bank's own
policies on dealing with clients, with the decision being made to
let them in on how much the bank makes on the financial products
they sell them.

"Self-orientation is often driven by fear, fear of loss or
rejection," de Boer said. "Lack of transparency of profits in
financial markets is a big problem. Clients always have a feeling
that profitability is a black box and don't know what they're
paying for."

So far it's worked on both internal and external fronts. The bank
hired McKinsey to carry out a cultural survey on 23
different metrics, and found that staff engagement was higher
than the industry standard despite profit-driven bonuses being
lower.

de Boer also said that client revenue had grown faster than the
industry trend, with 80% of the growth coming from existing
clients.

"We're seeing a few mega-trends. There's a new era of volatility
in the market, with bubbles bursting and increased geopolitical
risk. We've found that clients are looking for people to lead
them through this," de Boer said.